SKINS’ GAME: With rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III looking like the real deal, the Redskins figure to bemuch-improved this season—meaning the Giants will have three formidable foes, including the Eagles and Cowboys, this season in the NFC East. Photo: Reuters

SKINS’ GAME: With rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III looking like the real deal, the Redskins figure to bemuch-improved this season—meaning the Giants will have three formidable foes, including the Eagles and Cowboys, this season in the NFC East. (
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Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.

Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!

Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes! Volcanoes! Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!

They woke up in last place today, too. And will do so tomorrow. And Thursday. And Friday. The weekend? Last place, and no matter how next weekend shakes out, they are destined to fare no better than waking up tied for last place next Monday, too.

“You can’t lose a game,” coach Tom Coughlin said, dead pan.

Yes. That’s Coughlin’s style. He isn’t the type to quote “Ghostbusters” for a chuckle, but even in the aftermath of an opening night game that clearly turned his stomach, the coach of the Giants was able to laugh off — well, maybe “laugh off” is a bit strong; let’s say “shrug off”—the dyspeptic feeling of being in last place. One of only two teams in the NFL—interestingly, the Packers who play Thursday against the Bears, are the other—who are winless while all three division mates merrily proceed undefeated.

“Hey,” Justin Tuck said, smiling. “The way I look at it, we’re right where we ought to be.”

Yes, of course: Last year the Giants lost a division game in Week1—and that was to Rex Grossman’s Redskins, for goodness’ sake—and, well, recovered from it in the end. Tuck was there in 2007, which means that if the Giants would prefer to follow that blueprint, they’ll lose to the Buccaneers by 22 points this weekend, then spot the Panthers a two touchdown lead the following week in Charlotte.

And, you know, then start the season.

“I guess if there’sone thing you can say about us,” safety Kenny Phillips said, “it’s that we know there’s no need to think the sky is falling based on one game.”

What should concern the Giants more than what happened to them on Wednesday, when the Cowboys walked intotheMeadowlands and ruined their party, iswhat they watched happening around the division and around their league on Sunday.

Coughlin and his coaches gave a good, hard look to the Bucs-Panthers game that matched their next two opponents, and if what they saw from Carolina might have been significantly less than the playoff-bound sleeper some league observers predicted, that had to have been offset by the gritty effort that Greg Schiano’s team put forth, holding the Panthers to 10 rushing yards and containing Cam Newton all day.

Of course,while the ugliness of the Eagles’ escape in Cleveland might have suggested we’re in store for more slapstick from Michael Vick and the Birds, the transcendent debut of Robert Griffin III in New Orleans certainly served notice the Redskins—who, by the by, beat the Giants twice last year — won’t be serving as dormant doormats in the NFC East much longer.

So there’s your week. Some are more eventful than others.

“I haven’t slept well,”Tuck said. That was Tuck talking about the Cowboys game, a night that left a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth, but one that also served as the first reminder of what a task lies before the defending champs. We already knew about the thorns lying in the road ahead—the Steelers, the Niners, the Packers, the Saints, the Ravens and the Falcons.

Now we know about the Bucs, who should still be too much a work-in-progress to challenge the Giants this week, but…you never know. And the Redskins: who should still be a year or two away from RG III realizing the full apexof his talents, but…well, you never know.

“You know it’s never going to be easy in this league,” Phillips said. “And maybe Week 1 was just a reminder of that.”

So were the standings, early enough to laugh about, even if the message contained in them isn’t quite so funny. Everyone salutes you when you win a title — and then can’t wait to commence to bury you. Even if only for a week.